The health and military shocks, two years after the Covid pandemic and two months of war in Ukraine, revealed the trends that began to form several years ago, and here are the "authoritarian" forces, led by China and Russia, working to dismantle American hegemony, to spread the concept of the law of the strongest at the expense of the concept of international legitimacy.

With this introduction, the French Le Point (Le Point) began a report that includes extracts from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report on the threats facing the world, recalling what Russian President Vladimir Putin said less than two weeks ago, on the 61st anniversary of Yuri Gagarin's trip to Russia. space, that Russia must remain a "nuclear and space" superpower.

And the magazine explained - in a report by Luc de Barroche - that the world began to change to become more violent, difficult and less stable, since Russia launched the most violent military attack on a European country since World War II, which threw many refugees on the roads, more than the old continent has seen since The collapse of Nazi Germany.

The conflict has caused a global energy crisis - as the writer says - and awakened the specter of food shortages, disrupted global production chains, and precipitated the rise in inflation, generating successive social tensions. We are witnessing “the beginning of a change of age,” as French President Emmanuel Macron said anxiously in an interview with Le Point last week. .

With this war - as the writer says - the nationalist regression gained a new extent, the emotions of identity began to fuel hatred towards others, and globalization began to lose its momentum, so that the West, which had become on the defensive in its liberal values, doubted its liberal values, at a time when Europeans were finding it increasingly difficult to protect their democratic model from attacks. internal and external, and in financing their own welfare state.

Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang have demonstrated their ability and determination to advance their interests at the expense of the United States and its allies.

US national interests

The writer says that, in this painful context, the predictions of US intelligence agencies help to anticipate future humanitarian, economic, environmental and strategic crises, and have published their annual assessment of threats to US national interests, and it describes the increasing risk of conflict between great powers, at a time when actors are Others disrupt the existing order, whether they are countries such as Iran, North Korea and others, or others such as the Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, major organized crime networks and drug smuggling.

The report notes that "Beijing, Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang have demonstrated their ability and determination to advance their interests at the expense of the United States and its allies," at a time when transnational global threats such as climate change, the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, cyber threats, terrorism, the militarization of space and epidemics are weighing on the entire planet.

According to the CIA's assessment, "principal adversaries and competitors of the United States are improving their military, electronic and other capabilities, and do not hesitate to use them, which increases the risks to the United States and its allies, weakens its conventional deterrent, and multiplies the continuing threat posed by weapons of mass destruction."

restore prestige

The writer mentioned that the inability of the US intelligence services to thwart the attacks of September 11, 2001, and after that Washington manipulated information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction to justify its invasion in 2003, has seriously contributed to destroying the credibility of the CIA, but the events of Ukraine gave it the opportunity to restore its prestige The US authorities revealed to the world the preparations of the Russian army on the borders of Ukraine, in addition to revealing the Kremlin’s intentions, defining the main axes of attack, and even predicting the exact date of the invasion.

According to the writer, the most exciting decision was the US government’s decision to publish such information, which is considered highly classified, although this unprecedented transparency did not prevent war, but the disclosure of Moscow’s malicious intentions - according to the report’s description - defused Russian propaganda related to Ukrainian provocations. alleged.

On the other hand, the CIA, anticipating a catastrophic defeat for the Ukrainian forces, would not have thought about the fierce resistance these forces displayed at the instigation of President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The assessment predicted that Moscow would remain an influential force and a formidable challenge to the United States in a changing geopolitical environment over the next decade

Russia.. Provocation for influence

According to the French magazine, the CIA's assessment predicted that Moscow would remain an influential power and a formidable challenge to the United States in a changing geopolitical environment over the next decade, and that it would continue to pursue its interests in a competitive and sometimes provocative manner, including pressure for hegemony over Ukraine and "countries." Nearby" the other, while exploring possibilities for a more stable relationship with Washington.

The US intelligence report indicated that Russia uses corruption as an effective tool in foreign policy to promote its geopolitical goals and to buy influence in other countries, but corruption at home also affects it, in addition to being a burden on its economic performance and ability to attract investment.

Le Point concludes that the US intelligence assessment concludes that Russia will remain the most important and strongest competitor in the field of weapons of mass destruction in the foreseeable future, due to its expansion and modernization of the capabilities of its nuclear weapons and the increase in the capabilities of its strategic and non-strategic weapons, and for its use of its intelligence, mediators and tools of influence in order to Dividing the West and increasing its influence around the world, while trying to influence the global position of the United States, amplifying the dispute within it, and influencing American voters and decision-makers.